by Tikiri
“My good god!” my grandfather had cried. “Marrying a non-Indian? May Lord Vishnu strike you for the shame you bring us!”
“You abandon your own family like this? You’re no longer my son!” Grandma had said when he asked her permission to marry the woman he loved.
“We told you so,” the sages of the neighborhood had said, nodding wisely. “This is what happens when you let your children go to school. When you allow them to go abroad, they lose all respect for our traditions.”
My father went from hero to outcast within a day.
It had been much worse for my mother, who’d also returned home with this news. She was the youngest of four daughters of a poor but up-and-coming family living on the outskirts of Colombo. Over the years, her father had progressed from selling cinnamon sticks on the streets to carrying mail for the post office, a substantial jump in income and social status, a jump their mother never let anyone forget. Each of her four daughters had graduated from secondary school, a first in a community where women didn’t finish school but stayed home to cook, clean, and have babies. It was progress, but old beliefs prevailed.
On my mother’s return, within minutes of intense cross-examination, her family discovered, to their utter horror, my father’s background.
“What kind of children do you expect to breed with this dark-skinned Tamil?” my eldest aunt said, spitting on the ground.
“Konkani,” my mother had tried to explain.
“No matter,” her sister had replied, “he’s not our kind.”
Kind? That always perplexed me. I never noticed the differences between my parents, or those of my classmates and teachers at my international schools. I knew they came from many countries and different backgrounds, but their “kind” was never something that came to mind. What I always remembered was how they treated me and how they made me feel.
I knew my father was color-blind; he had a hard time telling the difference between a blueberry cupcake and a mint one, until he took a bite. Maybe, I thought, I was becoming color-blind too. They do say it’s an inherited condition.
“This is what happens when you leave the village,” my mother’s mother wailed, beating her chest. “You get corrupted by foreigners. Aiyo Bodhisattva. What to do now?”
“If you leave with him, you leave us forever,” my eldest aunt had said, dismissing her sister with a wave of her hand.
“Ané,” cried the more compassionate of my aunts. “My young sister, what is this you’re doing? Let us find a good man for you.”
“But he loves me and I love him,” my mother said. “Can’t you understand?”
Her pleas fell on deaf ears. My mother had cried for days, knowing she had to make a choice between the man she loved and her family. I cried, too, when she shared this story with me.
In the end, my parents had followed their hearts. They had moved, leaving behind families, friends, their pasts.
They used their newly acquired degrees to find work overseas. Their journey over the years hadn’t been easy, but they had made a new future together. Not an extravagant one, but a far better one than either could have imagined in their poverty-ridden childhoods.
Part THREE
Who wants to die?
Everything struggles to live.
Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating.
It gets no sun, and water only when it rains.
It’s growing out of sour earth.
And it’s strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong.
Betty Smith
Chapter Eleven
We never saw it coming. Not even Aunty Shilpa.
It was twelve months after my confrontation with the boys at the station. That evening, Grandma asked me to cook dhal curry and coconut roti for supper, a chore I was getting good at.
I kneaded and flattened the dough on a chipped plate and flipped each roti on the flat iron pan. Grandma turned the fire low. “So the flavors will work hard and mix well,” she said. I sat next to the warm fire with a wooden spatula in my hand, watching the ground coconut, coriander, onions, and semolina team up and work hard to make a delicious dinner.
As much as I hated Grandma dictating my life, I loved cooking. It was one reason she tolerated me and didn’t throw me out of her home, I was sure. Every afternoon after school, I sat next to her in the kitchen, watching carefully, taking notes in my head, amazed at how simple things like flour, honey, fruit, and spices could come together and make mouthwatering treats. As I learned to cook over time, her yells and slaps became less frequent.
Playing with ingredients consumed all my attention. I mixed and stirred and fried and broiled, thinking of nothing but what I wanted to add next, how long I needed to stir, and when to move the pan from the fire. When I focused on my cooking, I forgot everything else. I forgot about having lost my parents, and having left my birth home. I forgot I didn’t have any friends in school and how men harassed me on my way to school. Most of all, I forgot I was a stranger in this strange land. When I cooked, I felt I’d found home.
Aunty Shilpa was ironing her hotel maid uniform in the corner. Supper was ready, but Grandma wanted to make an offering of the food to her buddha statue before we ate. While she prayed, I cleaned the kitchen, and joined Preeti on the sofa bed to finish my homework. She was writing a letter to a pen pal on pretty pink paper, fully absorbed in her task. The smell of the coconut oil on the roti skillet hung in the air, making me feel full and drowsy. My chemistry book was laid out in front of me, but I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open.
In Goa, I had to learn every one of my textbooks by heart. Night after night, I read and reread books on history, religion, biology, and language, memorizing every word, every paragraph so I could regurgitate it the next day in front of my class or on an exam. That evening, I was getting ready for the chemistry exam, writing out equations over and over again. I had no clue what they meant. They could have been a cure for cancer or a process to change the color of cabbage juice, but it didn’t matter because the best grades went to those who remembered the most, not those who tried to understand or asked good questions. It was very different from the international schools in East Africa where I learned to ask questions, rethink ideas, and never take anything at face value. I was nodding over my chemistry book, my pencil almost slipping from my fingers, when Grandma walked over, her prayers finished.
“Asha, my dear granddaughter,” Grandma said. I sat up and blinked. Preeti looked up with a frown. Grandma bent down and gently pulled the pencil out of my hand and closed my book. She reached to caress my hair. I pulled back like I was about to be bitten. Preeti, Aunty Shilpa, and I instinctively went on guard whenever she became nice, which didn’t happen often. Something was up.
“In a few months, you will belong to the Kristadasa family. They will take good care of you, my dear.” Grandma had a beatific smile fit for Mother Theresa. A chill went down my spine. I was fully awake now. Other than the noise of water running in the communal washroom nearby, no other sound could be heard in the apartment. I realized all three of us had stopped breathing and were staring at Grandma.
“What do you mean?” Preeti asked, looking first at me, then at Grandma, her forehead knotted.
“This is a very auspicious thing that is going to happen,” Grandmother said, nodding her head the Indian way.
Whatever it was, it didn’t feel good.
“Mother,” Aunty Shilpa said, “I thought you said you wouldn’t—”
“I spoke with the marriage broker yesterday,” Grandmother cut her off. I drew in a sharp breath. “He had some good choices. Some boys came with good horoscopes, but the one I chose was the best fit. I am sure Asha will make a very good wife.”
“Wife!” I shrieked.
“You’re marrying Asha off?” Preeti said, sitting up.
“The Kristadasa family will treat her very well,” Grandma said.
“Kristadasa?” My ears were pounding. Did I hear that right? I
looked at her in shock. “You’re marrying me to Nuthead?”
“No, silly girl. Oh my good Lord, no. Not that block of a boy.” She patted the sofa and slowly eased in between Preeti and me. We quickly moved aside. Sitting next to Grandma was like being next to the deadly African black mamba. One move and you’re gone for good.
“It is his father who is interested,” she said.
“His father?” I squealed. “That smelly old man with red eyes and hair growing from his ears?”
Grandma slapped my thigh. “Watch your language, girl. He owns a good rickshaw business and is the richest man in the complex. You should be happy he even thinks of you.”
I sat stunned.
“Mother, this might be not the best…,” Aunty Shilpa spluttered in her corner. “What I am trying to say is, he’s already married.” She gave Grandma a cautiously stern look. “We were going to talk about this.”
Grandma, in turn, gave Aunty Shilpa a nasty look. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
She turned to me. “I have already made the decision. This is your duty. Your husband will teach you well, and you will stop running around like a half-breed savage from Africa. It’s time to learn to be a proper woman. I talked to the sadhu and checked your horoscope. The planets are aligned. They all agree with this union.” She sounded like she was giving me a gift. “When my poor heart gives out one of these days, you will be taken care of well.”
“Is this a joke, Grandma?” I asked.
“I don’t do jokes,” Grandma said, putting on her preachy voice. “You know men. They want a big family to show off their manhood. He is looking for another wife, and is not asking for any dowry. He will pay for part of the wedding. Such a generous man he is. Who will marry a dark foreign girl like you, tell me that, ha? You should be so very lucky, Asha.” She smiled at me.
I struggled to not throw up. Preeti’s face had gone ashen, and in her corner of the room, Aunty Shilpa had started a coughing fit.
“Mother,” she said, once she’d recovered. “Asha is only fourteen.” I could see her hand, the one holding the iron, was shaking.
“What are you going on about, girl? Didn’t I marry you off at fourteen? I was married at twelve, mind you. I had my first son at thirteen and I gave my husband a total of four boys,” Grandma said, pointing her index finger in the air and making it sound like a feat for which we should congratulate her. I noticed she hadn’t mentioned Aunty Shilpa, her one and only daughter.
“Let the girl finish school,” Aunty Shilpa said in a soft but firm voice. “She’s doing well. An A-plus student, even. Once she is done, we can find her a suitable boy. She is already in grade ten, almost finished.”
I looked over at Aunty Shilpa. Her face, steamed up from the coal iron, looked pale. By then, I knew Preeti and I went to school because she had insisted. Insisted and insisted. To Grandma, school was a complete waste of time when we could be working at the hotel making money or staying at home where we could be cooking, sewing, cleaning, and learning to be good future wives.
Though Aunty Shilpa thought school was important, she could barely read herself. I once caught her going through my history book, a finger tracing the lines, her lips moving laboriously, trying to read a paragraph about India’s independence. I took the book from her and read the passage out loud. Her eyes shone with delight with every word. Though it was only a boring textbook, she laughed and repeated my words in glee. From that day on, I read to her whenever I could, whether it was on the beach, in the kitchen, or on the steps of our apartment complex.
“Who cares if she’s in grade ten or grade twenty?” Grandma said with a snort. “What good will school do? Teach a girl to cook? To be a good wife? Which kind of man wants to marry a girl who went to school, huh? Answer me that.”
I sat up angrily. “Papa would never let this happen! He told me the only job girls have is to finish school. You can’t make me break my promise to Papa.”
“You think your papa knew everything because he went to school? That son of mine lost his way the day he married that mother of yours. Heh!” Grandma pretended to spit on the ground.
I stared at her. Does she have to be so hurtful?
“Why are you looking so glum?” Grandma said, throwing her hands up in the air. “You will get a new sari and silver bangles. You should be happy, I tell you.”
“I don’t want a sari,” I said, choking on my words. “I don’t want bangles. I don’t want any of this!”
“Have you gone mad, girl?” Grandma said, sitting up. “I work so hard to help you and this is how you show your gratitude? I gave a good life for you, you foreign girl. Now, you will have food to cook and eat and you will bear many children for a good husband. What more do you want? Everything I am doing is for you!”
Grandma was getting agitated, her cloudy eyes darting back and forth, her mouth quivering.
“All my sons ran away. They left their own dear mother, who taught them how to walk, who cooked and fed them, and took care of them when they were sick. They took their wives and left to Mumbai and Delhi. Why? To make money. When is money more important than your own mother? I tell you.”
No one said a word. I looked at Grandma’s withered old face and crusty eyes. Her lips were set in a grim line.
“What am I left with now, I ask you?” she cried out. “I’m left with the burden of three girls. Three girls. Three mouths to feed. Three dowries. Three curses. You, Shilpa, you had to go and have your husband die on you. What am I supposed to do now? Tell me!”
“I can do this, Mother,” Aunty Shilpa said in a quiet voice. We turned to look at her.
“What is this you’re talking?” Grandma asked suspiciously.
“I can take care of the girls, like I do now,” Aunty Shilpa said. “I can ask for more hours at the hotel, so Asha is not a burden.”
“What? A widowed, childless cripple like you?”
Hearing those words, Aunty Shilpa withered like a leaf on fire.
“You’re very lucky the foreigners are giving you work,” Grandma said, shaking a finger at her. “Wait till they pass the hotel to the locals. They will sack you before you know it. Then what are you going to do? Go beg near the temples with the rest of the poor widows?” Grandma glared at her.
Aunty Shilpa cowered as if she’d been beaten by an invisible hand.
“Oh, Lord, why did you curse me to suffer like this?” Grandma threw her arms to the heavens and cried out. “Does the Lord not have any pity on me? Why me? Why me?” She wrapped her sari around her shoulders and rocked back and forth. I wished I could disappear into the ground.
“My teacher said no one can force anyone to marry anymore,” Preeti said in a quiet voice. “That’s illegal, she said.”
“You keep quiet, girl,” Grandma snapped. “You’re next!”
Preeti’s face went white.
Chapter Twelve
The next night, a loud knock sounded on our door.
Preeti and I looked up in surprise. It was almost bedtime, and no one visited our apartment at night. Grandma shot Aunty Shilpa a warning look.
“Girls, take your books and go outside,” Aunty Shilpa said, quickly gathering up our pens and pencils and closing our books, despite our protests.
“Now?” Preeti said, grabbing her pen back. “But I want to finish my homework.”
“Do what Aunty says, girls,” Grandma said, hastily removing a dishcloth from a chair. The knock sounded again. Louder this time. She waddled to the door and opened it. In walked a gray-haired man carrying a cane and a black briefcase. In a traditional white sarong and shirt, and with white chalk marks on his forehead, he looked like a mix between a respectable businessman and an even more respectable sadhu from the local temple.
Preeti and I stared at him wide-eyed.
“Marriage broker,” Aunty Shilpa whispered to us.
“Namaskaaru.” Grandma brought her hands together in greeting. The man returned the greeting and smiled a polite smile. He didn’t
notice us girls huddled in the corner.
“Where’s your respect?” Grandma snapped, turning to us.
I felt a slight push from Aunty Shilpa on my back. Preeti and I walked toward the man. He stood ramrod straight, like a king in front of his subjects. Watching my cousin closely from the corner of my eye, I followed her prompts. Hands together, bend all the way down and touch his feet, then get up and say “Namaskaaru,” with a slight bow of the head. I didn’t dare look in this man’s eyes.
That morning, I’d gone to school trying to forget Grandma’s ugly words, pretending the conversation of the night before had been only a surreal nightmare. But here was my nightmare alive and well, standing in our living room, staring me in the face.
I heard Aunty Shilpa say something from behind me. Preeti took me by the arm and led me out the door. I followed her meekly, head bowed, shoulders hunched. This was the real bogeyman. If Preeti hadn’t been there, holding my hand, I’d have thrown up on the spot.
We walked out of the complex and took a seat under the coconut tree near our building. Neither of us said a word. Preeti started to silently draw shapes on the sand with her fingers. My body was too numb to move, my mind too paralyzed to think. I sat quietly next to my cousin in the waning light, my heart heavy, wondering what was going on inside the apartment.
It was an hour later when we saw the marriage broker walk out the front doors of the complex. He walked with his chest out and a self-satisfied look on his face. He glanced at us momentarily but looked away as if we were not worth acknowledging. We waited for him to leave the compound and disappear into the streets before we headed back inside. Grandma and Aunty Shilpa were busy cleaning up in the kitchen, putting teacups away.
